


Pumping Blood

by radiantsaber



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, I don't do bad endings, M/M, brief attempted suicide, mentions of suicide/suicidal thoughts, mid-apocalypse??, there's not any graphic gore or anything but there's still zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 18:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11213901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radiantsaber/pseuds/radiantsaber
Summary: Lloyd never should have found him.





	Pumping Blood

**Author's Note:**

> hello again! i'm cross posting this from tumblr--this story is particularly old so i took it and sort of rewrote the whole thing so i could post it here so there may be some errors. i missed 6/10 for this but i still want to post it anyway so here ya go

When the whole world had gone to hell, a person could only last for so long on their own. Especially someone inexperienced, someone who was more used to being pampered, having everyone else doing things for them instead. Living the life of luxury was so far away now, and oh how tragic it was that no one was around to hear a man complain about how he hadn’t had a shower in nearly a month and was about to _die_ because of it. Because of the lack of a shower. You know. Not because of the virus that had turned half of the population into flesh hungry mutants.

He couldn’t keep track of time anymore, anyway. Had it been a month? Two months? A year? Who knew anymore. At this point it didn’t matter. He had been running, surviving for so long that it all seemed like a blur. Lying on a rickety, worn out mattress and waiting for the sunrise, he fidgeted with a locket around his neck; a photo of his younger sister rested inside it, something to keep him anchored. It didn’t always work.

The last time he saw her was when he shoved her onto a chopper to get her to a safe place. That memory seemed even more distant than the damned shower. Was she still alive? Was she safe? He wouldn’t know, now. He might _never_ find out. The thought dulled his optimism, not that he had much of it to begin with.

There were days when he was willing to give up. To hell with surviving. To hell with the rest of the world. Let it rot, for all he cares. It’s not like anyone would miss him, right? He’d laugh to himself. Ah, all the beautiful women he’d wooed in his life before this hell, surely _they_ would miss him if he’d died.

_No. No, they’re probably all dead, too. Dead or turned. Just like the rest of them._

Some days, that thought process was almost enough to make him give up. Some days, he had come dangerously close. He wasn't sure what made him continue on. He felt aimless, like it was pointless. On days like those, he was close.

And on one such a day like this, for Zelos Wilder, he came close enough.

He had finally given up. He was ready to die, ready to leave this godawful life behind and never see it again. _I’m sorry, Seles,_ he thought. If his sister was still alive, she'd probably be disappointed. Nothing new. Nothing worth living to see again. Not if it was just to hear how much of a disappointment he'd been when living. He was even worse at surviving, it seemed.

So this was it.

He supposed it was going to come to this sooner or later. He watched, with dawning acceptance, as those infected charged towards him with the intent to kill, backed him into a corner so he had nowhere to turn. His back hit the wall of a broken building and he slid to the ground. He wanted to die, but not if it was to be torn apart by them.

This had finally given him an incentive. He watched the oncoming horde as he pressed the barrel of his .38 against his head, said his goodbyes to the world, to his sister, squeezed his eyes shut and prepared to pull the trigger.

But a gunshot, from somewhere else, had startled him out of it and made him sit up in surprise. He lowered his gun and watched, as one by one, the monsters had fallen around him, screams and rips and tears and gunfire rang out. Was it military? Some bandits?

No.

That was when Zelos saw him.

Zelos mistook the brunette for an angel when he found him, at first. The sun beat down into his lilac eyes and silhouetted the other against his eyesight. The man had a genuine look of worry and panic on his face and he was offering Zelos his hand, his voice sounded muffled to the shock that dulled his hearing.

“Dude, are you okay? That was a close one.”

It was some goofball brunette with the spikiest hair Zelos had ever seen in his life. He and his friends, a cute little blonde girl, a busty dark haired woman and some white-haired kid and his sister, surrounded Zelos and asked if he was okay. This was confusing, it was alarming, he wasn’t used to this kind of attention from anybody, especially from some random strangers.

Talking to them was almost like a blur. How long had he gone without any actual contact with another non-infected human? He didn’t know. But one of the things he felt when they told him to stick around was...relief.

His first thought was they had a _lot_ of goods that looked worth stealing. He debated it, taking what he needed and continued on by himself, but he decided against it. He wasn’t exactly eager to go back out into that mess alone again.

So he stuck with them for a while. It wasn’t hard to get the dark-haired woman, Sheena, to hate him, what with all his shameless attempts at flirting. He huffed to himself; so much for any hopes of getting laid. He could’ve used a quiet night to de-stress from all the carnage they’d dealt with. Something to make him feel alive again.

The boy, Genis, was quick to follow in disliking Zelos. The lovely blonde, Colette, seemed to find him funny, which he thought was cute. She was pleasant to be around. The eldest of their group, Raine, remained indifferent, although she made it very clear that he keep his distance.

But the brunette was a whole other story.

Lloyd was his name. Zelos would hear it in his dreams, soon.

Instead of smacking Zelos, he’d level himself with friendly banter. He’d poke back at him, tease him, joke with him. Lloyd always seemed interested in whatever Zelos had to say, much to his surprise. Not that Zelos had a lot to say at first, nothing past small talk. _No point in laying your heart out when we’re all probably gonna die anyway._

Unfortunately, for Zelos, Lloyd would prove him wrong. The others made it clear they didn’t trust him. Zelos didn’t need to be told to see it in their stares, their body language. But Colette, sweet angel Colette, she was so friendly around him that it almost hurt. She was something he could see himself wanting to keep safe, someone so innocent and kind. _It would be so easy to lie to her,_ he thought darkly.

But Lloyd, Lloyd threw him for a loop.

Lloyd wore his heart on his sleeve. Lloyd was so honest it almost offended Zelos. He was passionate; it was easy to get him riled up over something he felt strongly about. He was...strong. He held something in him that Zelos wished he had. Zelos found himself enjoying Lloyd’s company, his conversations. It was almost as if Lloyd genuinely liked having him around.

Eventually, Lloyd opened up to him. Told him where he and his friends were from, what their lives were like before the virus hit. “I’m trying to get back to my parents’ house,” he’d said, fidgeting with a pocket knife that he claimed one of his fathers had given to him as a gift for his nineteenth birthday, “my dads are tough. I still hope they’re alright.” Despite the world having gone to shit, Lloyd still smiled like it was the middle of a clear sunny day in summertime. It was bittersweet.

And...at some point, he got Zelos to open up to him, too. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but he did it, through gritted teeth and all. So he did. Zelos opened up. Told him _almost_ everything. Where he came from, how he got here. Zelos told him about his sister, Seles, and how he had to force her onto one of the rescue choppers that took her away and to a safer place, how there was no room left on it but for one person. So he chose Seles instead. Zelos told him nearly everything.

And despite it all, he still looked at Zelos with a seriousness in his gaze that made the redhead swallow. Like he understood. Like he wasn’t judging Zelos. It made him nervous.

“Well I trust you,” Lloyd had said, “you’re with us now, and we look after each other. We’ll look after you, too, as long as you want to stay.”

It threw Zelos off track. Utterly baffled him. Why would this kid, someone who was still a stranger, care anything about some selfish rich boy who had lied and cheated himself to stay alive for this long? Who had stabbed others in the back and took what he could from them to survive?

Somehow, by some miracle, Lloyd understood.

Several times Zelos struggled. Once or twice he and Lloyd butted heads, only because Zelos was  still so set on dying. He’d never said it out loud, _not yet_ , but something in the way Lloyd looked at him made him realize that he just somehow _knew._

And it pissed Lloyd off. It _really_ pissed Lloyd off.

It was after they managed to escape by a thread’s luck from another horde that almost got Colette killed. Zelos had panicked. Zelos _never_ panics, but in that moment, it was all he felt so as to not let Colette get eaten alive.

It was the second time, within the span of meeting Lloyd in his group, that he was ready and willing to die. Only this time, he was willing to die in place of someone else. Not on Lloyd’s watch, apparently. He was backed against a wall, yet again, but Lloyd was as fierce in protecting his friends as he was when he spoke, and he had yanked Zelos out of the fray so hard that it made him dizzy. Lloyd didn’t look like much at first glance, but underneath his jacket and t-shirt was enough upper body strength to drop a man if he wanted or needed to.

Raine had scolded him that it was reckless of him to go back for Zelos when they were a breath away from grabbing him, but Lloyd didn’t seem to care. Not with how he was looking at Zelos, not when he had _fire_ in his eyes as if he couldn’t believe what Zelos had just done.

“You should have left me,” Zelos heaved a shout, frustrated as hell, like Lloyd had any right to save him, “are you out of your _mind_ ?! You could have died! What would the others think? What would _Colette_ think?”

“ _You_ could have died!” Lloyd shot back; the two of them were chest to chest now, squaring off, Zelos could feel a different fight coming on.

“ _Yeah_ , but you barely know me!” The look on Lloyd’s face was somewhere in between hurt and offense, and Zelos almost regretted having blurted that out. _You never should have found me,_ Zelos thought, again, before mentally telling himself to _shut up._ “It wouldn’t have mattered. You guys could have kept going--”

Zelos didn’t get to finish his sentence, because Lloyd had thrown himself at the redhead and clocked him across the face to shut him up. Lloyd wasn’t having it. The stinging in Zelos’ mouth from the punch had made sure to get that point across.

“You--” Lloyd breathed. He looked almost as defeated as Zelos felt. “You _son_ of a bitch. Don’t mess with me.” He huffed, seemingly regaining himself as he set his jaw and glared down Zelos with a look that told him _‘you’re better than this’._ “Just because _you_ don’t care about yourself doesn’t mean that other people don’t.”

Zelos stared. He had been so furious with Zelos. Nobody ever looked at him like that for doing something so reckless. Why the hell should he care? What made Lloyd so special?

Whatever the case, they continued. Zelos still struggled. Something in him felt _wrong._ The others had grown distant, and Lloyd had this...this weird _look_ on him that Zelos couldn’t place whenever the brunette looked at him. Even then, Lloyd still seemed amenable to talk with Zelos, to be around him.

It happens a second time.

Zelos hadn’t even planned it. Zelos didn’t even _think._ This time, Zelos almost managed to actually die. But, for once, he couldn’t seem to take pleasure in the idea of it. Not when Lloyd was so distraught, so angry and upset that it had almost happened _again._ But the difference, was that this time it involved _Lloyd_.

The only thing on his mind was _get everyone into the elevator ahead_ before the group of infected behind them caught up. He watched as two had snagged Lloyd, started dragging him back, and as soon as he saw one ready to bite down on him Zelos stopped thinking. All that mattered was Lloyd.

 _Lloyd. Lloyd. Not Lloyd._ **_Not Lloyd._ **

He got them. Knocked their heads clean off with the baseball bat he wielded, kicked them off, grabbed Lloyd by the arm and hauled him to his feet. He wasn’t thinking. He didn’t _want_ to think. Not when Lloyd was so close to being a cheap meal for two measly infected. And he still wasn’t thinking when he saw another group of the monsters charging at them from down the hallway and shoved Lloyd into the elevator behind him just before it closed.

“Zelos!” Lloyd had cried out before the doors shut; he couldn’t reach for him.

This time, Zelos felt like an idiot.

Lloyd was going to be _furious._

 _I’m not dying this time,_ was what he thought suddenly, preparing himself to clear the horde and find another way down. He wasn’t sure what spurred that thought, but he wasn’t about to question it.

When Zelos managed to make it to the ground floor alive, he was stunned to find the others actually waiting on him. When Lloyd turned to look at him, something in his gut twisted at seeing Lloyd’s normally bright face twisted in anger and grief. But he couldn’t react before Lloyd practically knocked the wind out of him by dragging him into a crushing hug, cursing him again and again for being the _idiot_ that he was.

“Stop,” Lloyd hissed at him, “trying to get yourself _killed._ ”

“You’re welcome,” Zelos responded. He felt light all of a sudden when he watched Lloyd’s expression turn into relief, laughing softly. He shoved Zelos.

“Yeah. Thanks for that. Jackass.”

Zelos felt himself grin.

It was tense for a while, but Lloyd came around again eventually. Something had changed. Zelos started holding up his end. He helped the group defend themselves, not that he hadn’t tried doing so before, but this was different. He was being more cautious. He was more alert. Something akin to guilt made him refrain from making any stupid decisions again. And when he saw Lloyd smile at him after offering insight on a plan after discovering the location of a military base, Zelos decided to go along with it.

He’d laid his heart out to Zelos one night about recent events, about the world. Lloyd told him he cared, that he was glad Zelos stayed with the group. He was being honest. Lloyd was so honest it hurt.

And Lloyd had shown it, too. When they’d be swarmed with monsters, Lloyd was at Zelos’ back. He’d dragged Zelos out of a pond he almost drowned in from being overpowered by a few of the infected. He was there to smack Zelos awake when he had been knocked out cold by a group of bandits. And he was there when Zelos had bad dreams, he felt Lloyd gripping his bicep when he  woke in a cold sweat.

Eventually, inevitably, a realization hit Zelos.

They sat across from each other one morning at a rundown backwoods townhouse in front of one of the windows while the sun seeped in. They were talking like normal, joking around as Lloyd polished a pocket knife of his, the one that one of his fathers gave to him. It was then, Zelos noticed he was sitting far closer to him than he thought. Lloyd had dark circles under his eyes, some stubble lined his jaw, Zelos could even spot tiny scars across his cheeks and forehead. The sun cast a slight orange glow on his skin, made the long feathery wing tattoos spread out over his arms stand out more, and he smiled at a joke, still looking down at his hands.

Lloyd Irving was the most wonderful thing Zelos had ever laid eyes on.

“I still have hope, you know,” Lloyd had said, breaking Zelos out of his trance, “for the world. For us. There’s always a way. ‘Whatever will be, will be.’ That’s what you told me, right?” Lloyd smiled at him, and Zelos felt his heart flutter.

There was something about Lloyd’s ideals that made Zelos want to actually keep going. It made him want to keep living, it made him want to see his sister again. Zelos had a difficult time believing in others, trusting them--because what’s the point in doing either of those things if you can’t do it for _yourself?_ Well, Lloyd made him think it was possible. Lloyd had somehow managed to get him to believe that there was _hope_. He would’ve laughed if the thought hadn’t touched him.

Realizing that Zelos cared more about this man than anything else made him forget about how eager he was to die.

So, somehow, he found the courage to respond, “You make it sound worth it. All this surviving and suffering.”

The look Lloyd sent him in return sent shivers down his spine. Lloyd reached out, while Zelos’ heart jumped into his throat, and held Zelos’ hand, squeezed it, made him feel electricity all through his body. “You gotta keep going because you _want_ to, not just for me.”

Zelos did.

He wanted to. So, so badly. Hearing it from Lloyd, he could believe in it. He could believe it was all worth it.

But like all things, there’s always bumps in the road along the way.

This one in particular, however, was an entire sinkhole that caused Zelos to get separated from the rest of the group. On their way to the base they had discovered, the city was being bombarded by military to eradicate the remaining infected, without warning, and they didn’t have much time to prepare for it, even less time to gather themselves so that they could press on.

He heard Lloyd calling for him from the other side of the debris, “Zelos! Zelos are you okay?!”

“I’m fine!” He shouted back. He could feel a twinge of panic in the back of his mind. “What about you?”

“We’re okay! There’s...there’s no way around this. Damn it!” He could hear shuffling, but it was drowned out with another explosion nearby that nearly knocked him on his feet. He heard Lloyd again, “Shit. Zelos--Zelos, you gotta keep going!”

_No. No. Don’t leave me like this._

Before he could respond, Lloyd’s voice rang out over the rubble again, “We’ll find you. I promise! I promise, Zelos!” He felt his fingers curl into fists. “Head for the base! We’ll meet you there. I _promise._ ”

_Lloyd…_

This was the first time in a long, long time that Zelos felt...genuinely upset. But there was no time to think on it, so with a final shout of affirmation, he turned and ran. He knew where the military base was and how to get there, but now he had to do it _alone._

 _Again_ , Zelos was alone. It was almost like some cruel joke.

It only took a day passing for him to doubt himself again. Then another day passed, and another. For once, Zelos was terrified. What if he never saw them again? What if he never saw _Lloyd_ again? So much had happened in such a short time.

Soon, Zelos found an abandoned house and slumped down inside as he finally, _finally_ broke down, the emptiness around him becoming too much. He hated feeling like this. He had never felt so _strongly_ like this before, and it crushed him. Before, he was used to being alone, he even welcomed it. It was so much easier to maneuver about and cut ties when you didn’t have anyone to rely on, or have anyone relying on _you._ But then he met Lloyd. Lloyd, who dug him out of his hole and taught him how to look forward instead of down at the ground. Lloyd and his group, who had made him feel like he _could_ survive, like he _would_ see his sister again. Lloyd and his group, they made him feel like he actually mattered.

A week passed. Zelos was still alive, somehow.

And for the second time, something else hit him.

_'You gotta keep going because you want to, not just for me.’_

It kept Zelos moving, kept him on his toes. This time, Zelos felt focused, felt the need to survive and get to that damn military base. He _wanted_ to keep going. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to let himself be overcome again. He didn’t want to die. _He didn’t want to die._

And so he kept on.

It took him two more days to finally make it to the military base. When the soldiers saw him outside and ran to retrieve him, he couldn’t hold back the tears and cries of relief as he crumpled to the ground before them.

It was awful at first. Zelos was hauled in to be cleaned and scrubbed head to toe, run through several tests and examinations for any traces of the virus that infected the people. He could’ve sworn it took them an entire day just to look him over. Probably scrubbed off an entire extra layer of skin just to be safe. But eventually, he was released and allowed to rest in a shared tent with several other survivors; there was a pink haired girl named Presea and a skyscraper of a man named Regal. They weren’t very talkative, and so he kept to himself.

Zelos wasn’t sure how long he waited. It had been a few days, at most. The fear of something having happened to Lloyd and his group had been settling in his stomach for a while. He had a nightmare about it, and Lloyd still wasn’t there to comfort him when he woke up. For the second time, he let himself silently weep.

But as Zelos would learn, Lloyd Irving keeps his word.

One morning came when Zelos rose to head into the cafeteria to eat. The people there shuffled around and found families and friends, people just arriving and reuniting with loved ones. It made Zelos’ chest ache, longing for a similar fate. It was another morning without seeing anyone familiar. All he could do, now, was hope.

“Zelos!”

A familiar voice froze him in place.

The world around him seemed to stop. Zelos jerked his head around to find the source of the voice. He searched once, twice, until he finally caught sight of who it came from.

All that remained was that bright, tanned face with a golden grin and wild brunette hair that he adored so much.

Zelos startled, at first he thought he saw a ghost, but after he blinked several times and saw the rest of the group pour in behind him--all wearing smiles of relief--he was positive that no ghost could have looked that radiant, that utterly happy to see him alive. It was Lloyd. It was _Lloyd_ and the others, alive and breathing and _safe_. Zelos felt tears prick at his wide eyes, and a smile of his own broke out on his lips.

An overwhelming feeling nearly burst his chest when he watched Lloyd rush through the crowd, running towards him with his arms wide open. He latched Zelos into a tight hug and barked in a laugh that sounded like bells to Zelos’ ears, and that bit of hope in his chest bloomed into something bigger.

It was the first time Zelos Wilder was genuinely happy to be alive.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!


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